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Antiquity

500 BCE

2 recorded milestones at this point in the record.

c. 500 BCE
Technology
China

Cast iron

Chinese furnaces reach temperatures that liquefy iron for casting into moulds.

Why it mattered

Mass production of ploughshares, pots and later cannon, 1,500 years before Europe.

c. 500 BCE
Science
South Asia

Panini's grammar of Sanskrit

Panini specified a language with about 4,000 ordered rules of extraordinary economy.

Why it mattered

A formal generative system anticipating modern linguistics and computing.

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